The devastation from Tropical Storm Helene in the Asheville region may be unprecedented, but North Carolina pastor and Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley said the way Southern Baptist relief organizations respond is “predictable.”
“The mobilization of Southern Baptists is predictable but it’s also flexible,” Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, said in an interview. “We haven’t faced something like this completely, but our people are trained to feed and to help and to clean up.”
Hickory Grove is among dozens of congregations sending truckloads of water and teams of volunteers to Asheville to support faith-based disaster relief efforts. On the receiving end are sibling SBC churches distributing the water and recovery teams, while officials with the state Southern Baptist convention are coordinating the logistics.
That state convention, called North Carolina Baptists, is managing nine recovery sites throughout the impacted areas, said Tom Beam, disaster relief director for North Carolina Baptists’ disaster relief arm.
North Carolina Baptists is also partnering with the Salvation Army and Red Cross to operate three fixed feeding sites in Buncombe, Watauga, and McDowell counties, where service workers cook food and send out 25,000-plus meals to about 30 different locations in the area each day. North Carolina Baptists have six mobile kitchen units “so no matter how much we’re asked to cook, we can do it,” Beam said.
One of the local churches supplying the community with those material needs is Biltmore Church. The multi-campus Southern Baptist congregation is providing water, ice, and meals at its Arden campus at 35 Clayton Road, Arden, NC from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. this week.
“The total recovery will be many, many months but the urgent needs right now would be trying to help people survive” Bruce Frank, Biltmore’s lead pastor, said in an interview.
Various aid organizations are using space at other Biltmore campuses. Frank said Biltmore’s Hendersonville campus is being used by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, its West Asheville campus hosting electricity repair crews, and its East Asheville campus is being used by the National Guard and a nonprofit called All Hearts and Hands.
Meanwhile, Biltmore members are lending volunteer support when they can as they might also be dealing with damage to their own homes and communities. Frank said some of those volunteers showed up willing to help and were dehydrated.
“I’m the most blessed pastor in the whole place in terms of looking at our people,” Frank said. “They’re out here serving other people.”
‘Some things we really do well’
The type of urgent need is already evolving, meaning Southern Baptist relief efforts are adapting.
Teams of Southern Baptist volunteers on chainsaw crews are deploying out to clear trees, tarp roofs damaged by wind and trees, and to treat flooded homes to try and prevent mold, said Mark Hinson, a site coordinator for the North Carolina Baptists’ disaster relief arm. The latter projects involve tearing out walls, cabinets, toilets, showers and bathtubs, water heaters, insulation, floors and sub-floors.
“If you don’t tear it out and let it air out and dry and spray it with the mold treatment, it (mold) will just keep growing,” said Hinson, who’s managing recovery teams based at Biltmore Church’s Arden campus.
The Southern Baptist chainsaw teams are mostly working in residential areas. Hinson’s teams out of the Arden campus have received 53 requests alone and Hinson said the total across all recovery sites is likely in the hundreds. Residents can submit requests for assistance at https://baptistsonmission.org/Mission-Projects/By-Mission-Type/Disaster-Relief/Hurricane-Helene/Homeowner-Assistance.
“This is our 40th year doing this in North Carolina,” Hinson said. “And we’ve developed a training system based on what we’ve been through.”
Beam said Helene is unique because it stretched relief efforts across multiple states where the storm touched down. “It’s created a little bit of a resource issue,” Beam said.
Pressley said his church is regularly involved with Southern Baptist disaster relief efforts across the South and throughout the U.S. But he said Asheville’s proximity to Charlotte allows Hickory Grove’s more regular volunteer to make day trips, while it might also incentivize other volunteers to get involved for the first time.
“Some things we (SBC) really do well and have mastered over the course of time through trial and error: disaster relief and mercy ministry,” Pressley said. “Disaster relief on a real local level, that helps remind our churches: this is why we’re Southern Baptist.”
Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@tennessean.com or on social media @liamsadams.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Asheville NC flooding: How SBC churches are providing disaster relief
